Shalom, Merry Christmas

December 6, 2008 - 10:43 AM by
Shalom, your skin looks terrible...

Shalom, your skin looks terrible…

You won’t be able to avoid them if you’re shopping in a US mall for the holidays. No, I don’t mean the Salvation Army folks… but the Israeli salespeople.

Sure, young Israelis, fresh out of the army, are manning those middle of the mall kiosks year round, selling Dead Sea products, and a whole lot more. But around the holiday times, their presence becomes… well, to put it politely, a little more forceful.

The Wall Street Journal picked up on the trend and ran this sordid expose a couple days ago

At malls across the country, shoppers are being besieged by a determined crop of salespeople: young Israelis who man mobile carts and have a no-holds-barred selling style.
Amid the grimmest holiday season in years, these workers are approaching passing mall shoppers or calling out from their stations, pitching body lotions, irons, toys and knickknacks.

They demonstrate their wares by flying remote-control helicopters, steaming shirts and applying makeup. Instead of charging American-style fixed prices, they harness the culture of the bazaar and often quote numbers based on what they think a customer will be willing to pay.

It’s a far cry from the selling style of many of their fellow cart vendors who tend to be more passive and let customers come to them.

Actually, it’s a refreshing change from the cookie-cutter ‘have a good day’ Barbie mentality one usually finds in Middle America commerce. And for the kids, it’s a pretty sweet deal, if you’re willing to work hard and don’t mind some Israeli-style balagan.

My daughter spent her six months prior to beginning her IDF service serving the public in a suburban mall near Indianapolis by selling Dead Sea creams and lotions. She lived in a crammed condo with six or ten other Israelis, sort of like a kibbutz dorm situation, worked all the time, made big bucks, and kept those Hoosiers glistening in fresh, creamy skin.

So, if you’re in America and headed out to the malls for some Christmas bargains, don’t forget to give the first Israeli you meet a big smile and hug. They’re a long ways from home.

Tags: , , • Category: Business, General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life 

Comments

3 Comments on Shalom, Merry Christmas

  1. Nicky on Sun, Dec 7th 2008 11:31 AM

    2. Here’s Israeli folk-rock musician Rami Feinstein with a song he wrote about his experiences working the carts in a suburban Minneapolis mall. He sold fingernail buffer kits in 2003 to try to make enough money to record an album. At the start he hated the pushy tactics, but it obviously worked because he’s gone on to make music.

  2. anon on Tue, Dec 9th 2008 5:59 PM

    3. I hear from friends who have worked the carts that the stuff they sell isn’t such high quality, and can potentially be harmful.

  3. joseph on Mon, Jan 26th 2009 5:04 PM

    4. last spring, after me and my wife(both retired) received our income tax refund (very little) we went to the local mall to splurge it at am Applebees. after lunch, we had a couple of dollars left over. a young woman had a kiosk set up in the mall,she was selling dead sea products..we talked, she was persuasive. so, for $45.99 USD, we wound up with a jar of sand and a tube of cream and apleasnt memory of a good day.

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